


see, i know my destination

by ourseparatedcities



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, separation & reunion, the limitations of language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8243554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourseparatedcities/pseuds/ourseparatedcities
Summary: Hours go by, measured only by the way Mira’s breathing evens out. The metronome swings and pauses, suspended impossibly against gravity. Mehdi waits for his body to settle but his limbs twitch in irritation.“Mira?” he asks, expecting nothing.Still, Mira finds him there.“Mehdi.”The futile way they keep saying one another’s name, as if repetition will flower into permanence. Holding onto one another between the sweet-sad syllables.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brampersandon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/gifts).



It's nearly 1 am when his phone buzzes atop the Carrara marble countertop.

Mehdi's on his hands and knees, trying to find the wheel from Kays' car. His head pops up and nearly hits the edge. He's smothering a curse under his breath when he reads the name on it.

His body goes stock still, like suddenly his basic human functions have forgotten what comes next. The frission of anticipation stutters along his spine.

“ _Bonjour_?” he asks, bringing the phone up to his mouth

 _“Para Italiano_ , Mehdi,” the voice sleepily mumbles on the other end of the line. He smiles helplessly, some mild-mannered precursor to  Stockholm syndrome.

“This is a French home,” he reminds softly, leaning elbow against the cool surface. Something sticky clings to his elbow, makes him grimace.

On the other end of the line is a quiet chuckle. Mehdi inspects his elbow in the light.

“Your kids speak perfect Italian,” the voice remarks. Mehdi can't hide his smile, bends his elbow to run water over it.

“And German,” he comments, rubbing at the now clean skin with a lightly moistened end of the dishcloth.

Silence creeps in like the threat of an intruder, looms over them amorphously. Mehdi clears his throat audibly before running the cloth under the warm water.

He rests the phone on a clean bit of space and hits speaker.

“And French,” he concedes, searching out the source. There, on the other end of the island, begins a trail of tacky handprints. Strawberry jelly the likely culprit, his son preserved in the process.

The formless spectre retreats.

Mehdi wipes away the last of the stains before dropping the dirty towel into the basket. The couch is warm and welcoming when he flops onto it.

“Sleepless, Mira?” he wonders, curling his legs up against his body. The well-worn throw is unfolded and arranged over his lap. It feels strange, watching his own hands do it with Mira’s voice in his ear.

A hum of agreement. Mehdi’s eyes close in conjunction. The sound belongs in foreign hotel rooms, lights flicked off, the room thrown into dark relief. Quiet, the night and silence building around them like an inhale until someone dares to disrupt it. Almost always Mehdi.

“Thinking?” he asks, curious. Wonders where in the world Mira is. The distance between Munich and Rome is a fact of his existence he’s memorized, resigned himself to.

“I’m in Torino.”

Mehdi’s eyes snap open and the single light in the hallway floods them, nearly blinding. He blinks to adjust but the sharp pain’s already in his head, damage done.

“How is it?” His words are uncharacteristically careful.

“It’s nice. Quieter, for one.” Mira’s voice is firmer now, no more of the sleepy lull, no slow sprawling syllables.

Mehdi considers carrying on like this, the particular slant of Mira’s words falling on him like a ray of sunlight. Basking in the glow after a long, harsh winter. Seeds long buried fluttering inside their husks, preparing, waiting.

He splits the silence at the crack in the shell.

“Have you decided then?”

A measured beat, but Mehdi’s no longer sure if he and Mira are counting at the same speed.

“I made lists.”

It startles Mehdi into laughter.

“How many?"

“One for team playing styles. One for schools. One for city life.”

“And?” he prods. The blanket’s trailing over the floor now, Mehdi’s body hunched forward slightly. Reaching across the distance between to connect.

“And, I think yes.”

Mehdi’s inhale is sharp, the air too sudden and cloying in his lungs. There’s a pressure building between his ears, a headache, a summer storm. A heaviness over his torso, like a chest pressing his chest into the bed.

“Have you signed yet?” He makes himself ask. Hopes Mira doesn’t notice if his breath hasn’t settled yet.

“In the morning. I just wanted to…”

He trails off and Mehdi knuckles at his eyes, slotting his heart somewhere between the ellipses.

“You wanted to?” He prompts. It feels imperative, now, to know. Mehdi’s pulse thuds thunderously, defiantly at his throat.

“To talk to an old friend, first.”

It pops noisily, an exhale sighing out of Mehdi’s mouth, lungs precariously empty. He forces himself to speak anyway.

“Whatever decision you make is the right one,” Mehdi mouths automatically. The hollow between the words rippling out. There are a thousand things he wants to say, a hundred words to say them with, and three languages to translate them into.

Mehdi presses his lips closed instead.

“Ah.” The singular syllable spilling a strangled sorrow. “Yes. Alright. Well, I should sleep, probably.”

Mehdi nods. Leaves the phone on the seat while folding the blanket neatly up again. It feels heavier now, packing it all back up again. When he lays it back over the waiting arm, he’s mostly just tired. Without hope, what is there left to fight with.

“You will come to love it, eventually. You will learn.”

The lateness of the hour, the simple belief in their truth hallows the words.

“Mehdi,” Mira begins. A finger plucking a heartstring, a single pure chord crying out.

One beat. Mehdi could. Two beats. Mehdi might. Three beats. Mehdi won’t.

Four beats.

“Sleep well,” Mira speaks finally.

Mehdi wonders if he imagines the reluctant apology underneath.

“You too,” he replies. Clicks end before he can count again.

-

_December, 2015_

_He's jolted awake by dream eyes thrown open, staring up at the high ceiling. The window to his right is left open, the sea slipping like a thief into the room with each waft. A breath and the salt is in his chest, which tells him he is in Dubai. The arm over his belly tells him he isn't alone._

_Blindly, he walks the tips of his fingers over the hills of knuckles. The slope of his fingers, the webbing between._

_Blindly, he recognizes whose they are._

_His palm flat against the back of his hand, he slides his fingers between. The light huff of his sleeping presence against his shoulder. A leg thrown his thigh. Allowing himself indulgences in sleep._

_He's._

_The curtains sway in the breeze, wavering. Suddenly, fiercely, he can't not anymore._

_“Mira,” he tells the ceiling._

_“Mira,” he asks of the curtains._

_He turns his head, noses into the side of his nose. The whole of his body follows along, curving and curling to fit against Mira's._

_“Mira,” he whispers against his warm cheek._

_He makes a lazy sound of protest, hand hooking onto Mehdi's arm in half-asleep._

_It feels enormous, gathering force along the way. Collecting the detritus of all they've left unspoken for so long._

_When it lands on his tongue, it feels impossibly simple_

_“Come with me.”_

_Mira's lightly formed fist squeezes, then releases again in reply._

_“You come back,” he says, sleep thickly slurring his words._

_“I can't,” he reminds. Roma has a long, rich history and their fans, an even longer, richer memory.  
_

_“Okay,” Mira tells him._

_“Come with me,” Mehdi repeats mulishly. Logic and persuasion have abandoned him, leaving only this desperate plea. He closes his eyes, slides forward with a hand on the small of his back._

_Mira's arm falls over his shoulder, hand dangling by the blade. Mehdi tucks his nose into the hollow at his throat. it fits perfectly._

_That should mean something._

_He's not sure if he says it aloud, or if Mira just knows. A habit he’s accumulated along the way._

_Either way, Mira's mouth opens against his temple._

_"Come with_ me _." It lands lighter than a kiss._

_Mehdi thumps his fist lightly up the concave indent of his spine, lands home between his shoulderblades._

Anywhere _, he thinks._

_"Okay," he says._

 

-

 

The next morning arrives bright and early, leaves him staring out the window. The sunlight touches the grass, the leaves sway accordingly. Things carry on as they must.

Mehdi half-wonders if he imagined it. There are no missed calls, no fragments of thoughts shoved into texts.

It's a simple fact to confirm. Mehdi pads into the kitchen and makes himself the first cup of tea instead. Melodious tones of Peppa Pig warble in from the living room.

Lina tugs on his hem, peering up at him owlishly.

"Juice," she demands.  _Juice_ , he repeats soundlessly, grabbing another extra one for her to give to her brother. The stainless steel of the fridge is cold against his back. It brackets him into the here and now while he scrolls.

The usual websites say what they usually say, which is nothing at all.

He's scrolling through a crowd favorite, comforting in its consistent inability to spell his name, when the message alert arrives.

" _Interested_?"

His manager has never been one to spare words.

Below are two offers.

He thumbs through them, a blur of promises and possibilities. Snippets of memory filter back through. The perennial gloom of London, the overwhelming, encroaching gray. The opulence of Milan, names over store fronts and delicate silk rustling in the gentle breeze. He glances at the window. The planter on the windowsill. The bunches of basil.

"Any others?" he asks. Mild-mannered masochism, as Totti had once told him.

"One. Only a loan."

Mehdi presses open.

 

-

 

_September, 2015_

_He closes Kays' door as silently as possible behind him. Downstairs, the countertops gleam proudly again, nearly recovered from 12 hours of feasting. The faint scent of cinnamon and sweet milk lingers behind._

_Outside, the moon is a perfectly painted crescent, hung by an artist's hand. September arrives with the slightest chill, the breeze a caress inside the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He drops onto a bench and scrolls back up to his texts._

_"Eid Mubarak to you and your loved ones!"_

_Two hours later:_

_"Hope today finds you well."_

_In the distance, an owl sings the only song it knows._

Ho comprato una macchina rossa per Kays, _he tries again, in Italian this time._

_Under his breath, he hums a half remembered tune. The melody sounds full of heart, but he can't remember if it's happy or sad._

_I ate too much. Eyes bigger than my stomach, in English._

_He blows out a breath just to watch it puff up in the air, proof of his presence._

“Aujourd'hui est Eid. I arrive à faire un souhait.”

_His phone remains solemnly silent and still against his thigh._

Ich vermisse dich, _he challenges._

_It comes almost immediately._

I don’t speak that.

_Mehdi folds his smile up into a thin line._

You understand, _he sends back._

_He hums the chorus, and the second refrain before he realizes the song._

_“Ne me quitte pas…”_

_He hits call._

_"Hello?"_

_If he hadn't been clutching it so desperately, Mehdi would have dropped his phone._

_His mind blanks for a split second and when it shudders awake again, there’s only one thought._

_"Come to Dubai. For Christmas."_

_"We don't celebrate Christmas," Mira retorts drily._

_Mehdi rolls his eyes._

_"We celebrate break time. Dubai, you'll love it. I can show you."_

_He knows how Mira loves a thing, how he folds it up to carry it inside of him. The angle of the sunlight falling that will make his heart catch in his throat. The scent that will make him freeze. He could get him there._

_“Mehdi,” he starts, sighs. It’s so half-hearted that Mehdi doesn’t even bother, barrels right on._

_“Why not?”_

_“I don’t have that much time.”_

_“Five days.”_

_“That’s a long time awa--”_

_“Three days,” Mehdi interrupts._

_“Why does it matter?” Mira bites out._

_“Why are you fighting me?” Mehdi snaps back._

_The answer’s the same either way._

_Silence sinks heavy as a stone in the pit of his stomach._

_“Because I miss you.” He says it in their shared Italian. “And because I’m asking,” he adds in French._

_The weight drags him down until he’s sprawled out on the ground on his back. He slides his fingers between the blades of grass. Even with the glow of city lights, the sky looms darkly over him, dauntingly endless._

_The silence grows teeth._

_“What was the song?”_

“Moi je t’offrirai des perles de pluie,

Venues de pays ou il ne pleut pas.”

“Ne me quitte pas,” _Mira recites._

_“That’s not the next line,” Mehdi announces. His breath catches, tangled up in longing._

_“What’s the next line?” Mira asks._

_“Come to Dubai.”_

_-_

 

The bright lights snap at him and the fish-eye lenses peer obtrusively into his face. He's dead on his heels but he's done this enough times that it's instinctive. Smile here, turn your head this way so your eyes are symmetrical, hold out your hand for these people. Kiss the baby.

On more than three hours of sleep, the winding drive from the airport to the training center would be charming. the mountains stern and awesome in the distance, peaks losing themselves in the dreamy wisps of cloud. Verdant fields interrupted by wide patches of vibrant flowers.

Enough romance hidden away to make him care. Eventually.

The health center's teeming with staffers, fans and returning players. He promises to learn their names soon but mostly he lets himself be guided along by his manager, autopiloting through.

He's signing an autograph for a small fan swimming in his kit when he hears his name.

It's not a shout, barely louder than a whisper, but his whole body arches toward it.

Mehdi hadn't told him.

_I only agreed to the final terms last night. We weren't sure, what with the kids getting old. It's only a loan, I didn't think._

Except he's thought of nothing but, and terrifyingly, he's faced with Mira. His head refuses to lift. As long as he doesn't look, Mira can't be mad at him.

He briefly flirts with the thought of turning back around and hiding out in the car. But if he wouldn't let Lina do it on her first day of school, he supposes he isn't allowed either.

Slowly he turns, searches out his face.

He's already half at home in his Juventus sweatshirt, hands tucked into the pockets. One side of the hoodie twisted. Fondness jabs him between the ribs. 

There are a year's worth of thoughts rising up but all battened away by the immediate rush of, _Oh, I missed you.  
_

Before he even realizes it, he's striding across the room, finding his way to him.

"Mehdi," Mira says, with a grin full of nothing but joy. Again, muffled against his shoulder.

With his arms wrapped around Mira's waist and Mira's flung around his back, it's nearly impossible to know which of them made the first move. Only that neither of them seem to be able to let go.

"You're here," Mira proclaims with a bemused chuckle.

"I'm here," Mehdi confirms, closes his eyes and breathes Mira's presence in deeply.  

 

-

_June, 2014_

_His tips easily back against the armrest, the familiar ceiling with its familiar webbing appearing before him._

_"Don't fall asleep," a voice warns, and Mehdi makes a noise of protest._

_Fingertips dance up the sole of his feet, tickling him awake. He swings his feet, trying to get away. But the arms loop around his ankles, hold him in place._

_He tilts his head to the side just to look at him. That moment before sleep, where everything is vulnerable and open, possible._

_"Mira," he begins, no clue where he's going, what he means to say._

_"Mehdi," he pronounces, turns to meet his eyes. His eyes are heavy-lidded, as always, but alert, brimming with something inexplicably tender. He looks, Mehdi thinks, happy. Comfortable._

_Sunlight falls over the hardwood floor, casting its midsummer glow. The moment drapes itself around them, soft and full of warmth. Unfolded, it feels as if it might stretch into forever._

_It goes against his base instincts, fight-or-flight, sink-or-swim. The freedom of rootlessness._

_Mehdi watches Mira reach for the oranges on the coffee table. Small clementines enveloped completely by his wide palms. Delicate fingertips pinching at the puckered top and slowly, carefully, peeling the skin back. The neat, measured movement as he turns the fruit in his hands, unwinding it in a single long rind. The bright scent of citrus bursting into the room._

_Splitting it in half._

_A hand spread in offering._

_Mehdi curls his fingertips around the inside of Mira's wrist, guides the fruit to his mouth. It's small, fits in a single bite. Mira's hand lingers and Mehdi turns his cheek, presses his face into the empty palm. A noise escapes Mira, some low wounded thing. He brushes his thumb over his cheekbone._

_His throat feels thick, the moment honeyed and molten. Trapped in amber._

_"Do you want to go?"_

_Mehdi's eyes snap open and there is Mira's face, on the cusp of devastation. The cost of the words in the tightness around his mouth, the darkness of his eyes suddenly glossy._

_"No." Mehdi says it like a vow, tilts his head slightly to brush his mouth against the tips of his fingers. Shakes his head._

_"No."_

_The sour-sweet tang of oranges sticks to his fingers and Mehdi parts his lips, takes the tip between them._

_"No."_

_He licks until the taste of fruit is gone, leaving only Mira. Can't imagine anywhere else. Anyone else._

_"We'll talk to Pallotta," Mira tells him. Mehdi slips his fingers from his mouth and kisses the center of his palm in promise._

 

-

 

The windowsill is wider here, empty space left beside the planter. Room for something to grow beside the basil and parsley. He touches a finger to the shattered buds before leaning back, leaving them to their blooming.

He lightly spritzes the leaves, wonders how much they will have grown by the time of his return.

Either the streets of Torino are more welcoming to strangers, or GPS' have improved, but Mehdi makes it to the airport in record time. The team's scattered in various clumps throughout the boarding area, staffers herding them like kittens into neat lines. Mehdi falls behind Daniele Rugani, a beat-up copy of Kafka underneath his arm. 

Further up, Marko seems to be following after Mario, who mostly seems to trying to disappear as politely as possible. Paulo watches everything hawkishly, brows just on the verge of furrowing. Mira’s messing around with his headphones, glancing around while swaying on the balls of his feet.

“Okay, everyone’s here then. Andiamo!” Allegri announces. Mira turns sharply, eyes round and bewildered, searching for.

Finds him, raises an eyebrow. Mehdi shrugs and a frown pulls Mira’s mouth down, disappears when he turns back around. 

Suddenly, Mehdi feels small and unkind, frowns at himself. Ahead, the lobes of Mira’s ears go red by inches.

He pisses off half his new teammates in the process, but eventually, he’s sidling up to Mira, nudging his arm. Mira turns his whole body towards him immediately and Mehdi’s stomach twists with guilt. 

“Yo, have you heard the new Maître Gims?”He pulls it up on Spotify, holds out one of his earbuds for Mira to take. He lets go of the strap of the backpack he’d been holding almost childishly. It reminds him instantly, acutely of Kays, feels a rush of tenderness surge from an endless well.

He lets their arms brush again and again as they board. Mira drops into the window seat, stares up patiently, expectantly at Mehdi. His knees buckle under his eyes, falling into the aisle seat with the song dancing between them. Mira yawns softly, smothers it again his palm. Sensory memory overwhelms him, stifling sleep against Mehdi’s own skin. He has to force the breath out in slow exhales or he’ll choke on it.

Six songs into the flight, Mira starts drooping, the familiar forward sway of his body. Mehdi pulls open one of the blankets, and begins to spread it over his lap. Mira reaches out, touches just his knuckles. His eyes at half-mast, unseeing but lashes stirring the air with each blink. Aware. Asking.

Mehdi cautiously picks his phone up again, hits the pause button. Slides into the middle seat and arranges the blanket over Mira’s legs. Mira’s head leans back against the rest, tilted slightly towards him. He’s never been able to make it an hour into a long flight.

“Sleep, Mira,” he encourages softly. Mira’s eyebrows furrow together, but he doesn’t open his eyes. Mehdi hides his smile behind his newspaper. The armrest stays in place between them.

In the middle of Mehdi mentally adding Booker Prize nominees to his reading list, a soft weight lands on his shoulder. For a second, he freezes, glances surreptitiously around. A motley crew they are, half similarly napping, Gigi reading a book as thick as his hair. Paulo seems to be whispering something under his breath that scandalizes Pipita. Marko seems to have succeeded in trapping Mario by taking the aisle seat for himself. No one pays him any attention.

Mehdi’s head swivels to drop a light kiss to his temple before turning his head, resting it on top of Mira’s. He can’t stay in this position for long, his neck already protesting the angle. But for a split second, it feels exactly as it once was. As it should be.

 

-

  _March, 2014  
_

_They plod heavily back to the hotel room that night, exhausted limbs protesting with each step. A loss like this, 1-0, late in the game, drags them down by the feet. Mehdi’s not even paying attention, walks right into Mira back. Mira sort of freezes, wavers, unsure of what to do next. Mehdi presses a hand to the small of his back, pushes him forward lightly._

_The hotel room is blessedly warm, the window held tightly shut. He pulls off the post-game zip-up and tugs on a sweatshirt, the most he can do right now. Mira seems to have forgotten what to do with himself, wavers listlessly on his feet. With a sigh, Mehdi applies toothpaste to each of their brushes, hands Mira his red one. Mira stares at it like he’s forgotten what comes next._

_Eventually, he manages. Even in such a state, their quiet rhythm finds them again. Mira spits into the sink and Mehdi hands him his cup, watches as his reflection half-asses rinsing out his mouth. Mira leans back against the wall while Mehdi finishes. He manages to splash some water on his face before flicking off the light._

_Mira trudges to the nearest bed, blinks down at it for a second and climbs on top. His hands tucked under his chin, his socked feet at the other end on top of the comforter._

_“Under,” Mehdi instructs him, but Mira’s silent, still. With a resigned sigh, he begins the arduous task of extricating the comforter. By the time he makes it up to his arms, Mira’s watching his face like he’s waiting for something. Buried underneath the exhaustion, anticipation pricks mildly at him. He slides an arm under his body to get the comforter out completely and pulls it slowly up over him._

_Mira’s hands rest against his cheeks after, peering up at Mehdi. At this angle, in this light, his eyes are an impossibility that Mehdi dreamed. All the brightness in the world falling into them, reflected back up at him. He thumbs the dark hollow sunken underneath, tries to remember a time before them. Surely, he couldn’t have always felt this. Like the wisps of himself coalesce into a body only when those eyes are on him._

_It grips him, fiercely, suddenly, shakes him by the scruff of the neck._

_Mehdi has no words for whatever coils tightly together, low in his belly, has only just discovered the existence of it. But Mira’s been looking at him like this for months._

_“Mira,” he says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels. “Am I…”_

_Watching shadows dance across the wall, imagining a divinity to their mundane shape._

_Making it all up in my head_ _. Can’t make himself finish the sentence, stares at the bend of his shoulder willing the words out, away. Both._

_Each thing has a place where it belongs.  
_

_Mehdi can’t bear the thought of it, all the words he’s been saying, thinking, giving to Mehdi, simply evaporating into the ether. Into nothingness._

_Mira frowns slightly._

_“Mehdi,” he whispers. Searches for the next words but all words feel absurdly miniscule in comparison._

_Reaches out to encircle his wrist and, with the lightest of pressure, pulls him down._

_Mehdi follows after, slipping underneath the comforters beside him. Mira slides forward, presses until their torsos are aligned, touching from chest to waist, knee to ankle._

_“Sleep,” Mira tells him, and Mehdi exhales softly, lets his eyes close. Mira turns his grasp to link his fingers through Mehdi’s, brings it up to their chest. His heart thudding through layers against Mehdi’s knuckles._

 

-

_December, 2013._

_There is a spider skittering across the ceiling. There is a light outside that illuminates his journey. Mehdi watches._

_“Mehdi,” a voice interrupts._

_"Hmm?" A sleepy fragment of sound._

_"Why Morocco?"_

_The noise of night billows in through the open window, a jagged piece of shouting, a sliver of sharp horns. A dog barks in warning and Mehdi considers the question._

_He thinks of his father's tongue fighting with French, trudging through the foreign sounds. Then, the melodious song of his prayers in Arabic, the syllables dripping like orange blossom honey into a cup of tea._

_"I never felt French. Or only French. I was always...outside. There wasn't a place for me inside."_

_Miralem's brow scrunches at that.  
_

_"What?" Mehdi wants to know huffily_

_"Then they make room," Mira explains. As though the shape of things reforming to include Mehdi is a foregone conclusion.  
_

_Mehdi clears his throat._

_"Plus I'd have to compete for a place."_

_Mira scoffs incredulously and the corners of Mehdi's eyes crinkle in the dark. His fingers curl and uncurl themselves over the top of the blanket._

_"Why did you choose Bosnia?"_

_He's quiet for so long that Mehdi has to squint to make sure he's still awake. Outdoor light falling through the window reflects in Mira's eyes. When they close, the whole room is thrown precariously into darkness._

_"It was never a choice," Mira tells him eventually._

_"Would you have played elsewhere if they had asked?"_

_"Would you?" A toothless retort. Mehdi considers for a moment, before shrugging._

_"I wouldn't know until it happened," he admits._

_"How do you decide, then?" Mira wants to know, sheets rustling as he twists his legs. Mehdi wonders if the bruise high on his thigh from an unnecessary tackle has healed yet. Maybe then he'll be able to stop staring at it._

_Mehdi yawns softly, burrows deeper under the covers. The morning of the Roma offer is a hazelnut biscotti dipped into a demitasse of espresso in the garden. Kays climbing up his leg and Lina reprimanding him for asymmetrical braids. The dewy leaves of basil, ripe for picking. A single, long inhale, kneeling on a well-worn, secondhand prayer rug. The decision settling over him._

_"I just go. I do. It's."_

_Mehdi smiles sheepishly at Mira, sorting underneath for some semblance of sense. But it's Mira, who's nearly at the edge of his bed. The space between their bodies reduced to a matter of feet._

_And Mira will understand, even if Mehdi does not._

_"You shouldn't stay in a place too long. You forget what's real, what matters. Everything important, you already carry in here." He thumps his fist against his chest, lightly._

_"What about a home?" Exhale soft._

_"Kids and herbs: they travel well. A little sunlight, some kindness and love, they'll grow anywhere." He mumbles the last bit into the blanket out of embarrassment._

_"Have you ever missed somewhere?"_

_Mehdi considers, remembers his childhood home. The scent of roasting lamb and his grandfather's pipe smoke. How it is no longer vast enough to house the sprawl of his bones._

_"No."_

_"Have you ever missed someone?" he prods, and Mehdi chuckles softly. Even half-asleep, the wheels in Mira's head keep on spinning, undoing tangles until a clear picture emerges. He's never met anyone quite so curious about everything._

_"Yes," he concedes agreeably._

_Mira's mouth opens, then closes, but Mehdi knows, impossibly, that he was on the brink of asking_ who _. Like it matters immeasurably to him what makes someone unforgettable to Mehdi._

 _It startles him, the swift intense rush of awareness: h_ _e will miss Mira in a way he has never missed anyone else.  
_

_The way he is considering him now, dreamy and soft-mouthed. A thing too fragile to stuff into a cardboard box._

_"Tell me a story," Mira demands, makes Mehdi huff in amusement._

_"You'll just fall asleep," Mehdi opines._

_"I know. Tell me anyway."_

_He imagines someone else in his place, rummaging through the wreckage of their mistakes to find a single salvageable piece. Imagines folding up the tapestry of his life to fit inside of someone else._

_Imagines a hundred other scenarios of 'almost.' Like the right word in the wrong language. Like the perfect pass falling at the wrong foot. Straining towards exactitude._

_"Mehdi."_

_Only this, his name echoing in Mira's mouth, is pitch-perfectly right._

 

-

_October, 2013_

_“I could help you,” a voice offers kindly._

_Mehdi starts, blinking up at him. He hadn’t really been paying attention after he sat down by the window, hadn’t noticed Mira falling into the seat on his row._

_“Huh?” he asks dumbly._

_Mira nods down at the Advanced Conversational book resting on Mehdi’s lap._

_“Oh. Uh, no, I’m just practicing. Nothing serious.”_

_Mehdi doesn’t want to tell him that it’s partly his fault. He knows enough Italian to get by, enough to ask after someone’s children and thank them for inviting them to dinner. That’s enough for Udinese, but AS Roma asks more. It asks for the way Mira tilts his head slightly in interviews, half-introspective and half-leaning to listen more closely. The way his tongue lifts the words to sound, sure and steady. Mehdi can bumble his way through, but he never sounds quite like Mira. Like it’s his own._

_“You’re practicing speaking?” Mira asks, one corner of his mouth tugging up._

_“Yes?” Mehdi asks, hackles raising._

_“By yourself?”_

_Mira’s lips are set in a thin white, the edges of them white from the pressure of pressing them together. Like he’s stifling a laugh._

_Mehdi can’t do the same, the amusement bubbling out of him._

_“Maybe I’m a better conversationalist than you,” he retorts serenely. Purses his lips at Mira in challenge. Both sides of his mouth twitch in unison._

_A tiny kernel of promise nestles low in his belly._

_Mira invites him over three days later and Mehdi shows up early, hair combed neatly back, a box of oranges and a bag of apples overflowing his arms. Mira raises an eyebrow at them._

_“It’s my first time,” Mehdi explains, though he imagines he doesn’t need to._

_“You thought I was hiding a secret family of birds?”_

_“Squirrels,” he replies, slipping off his shoes at the door._

_“Do they sing?”_

_“Only when you feed them.” He looks down at the box meaningfully._

_Mira offers him four different kinds of juices, coffee, tea, sparkling water, bottled water,_

_“Tap water? Room temperature?”_

_Mehdi doesn’t reply for a minute just to see what comes next._

_Mira catches on too quickly, gestures at the living room with his chin._

_On the coffee table are a stack of notecards, a small office supply store’s worth of pens, and post-it’s in every shade of the rainbow._

_It’s Mehdi’s turn to raise an eyebrow._

_“I like organization. I make lists for everything.”_

_Mira shrugs, not particularly apologetic._

_“I’m sure it’ll help.”_

_An hour later, Mehdi’s not so sure. In fact, he’s convinced he knows less Italian than when he walked in. His stomach grumbles in protest, partly on behalf of his brain. He scrubs a hand tiredly over his face._

_He’s turning, the request for a drink on his lips when he watches Mira walks back in, sets a tray laden with the fruits and four different kinds of drinks. The rational part of his brain tries to convince him that he must’ve said something, that Mira heard the grumble._

_The irrational part of him leans in to grab at whatever the bright red juice it, sipping slowly at it as Mira slices off slender pieces of apple with a paring knife. There’s a delicacy to the movement, the sharp silver slashing through the vulnerable, bright red skin._

_His body feels oddly loose, comfortable in a way that signals sleep, except he’s awake. Except he’s curious as to what else might make Mira’s eyebrows scrunch together. But the warmth spreads out along his sprawled limbs, curling his toes and and flexing his fingers._

_Bones taking root inside of a body; a body settling in its place._

 

-

 

The wheel of Mehdi’s rolling suitcase catches on the threshold, makes him stumble as he follows Mira into their hotel room. He rights himself with a soft hiss, but not before Mira turns around, raises an eyebrow.

Mehdi doesn’t believe in omens, but that has all the trappings of one. Still, the door snaps politely shut behind him.

Mira wavers between the beds and it fishhooks him, the slight awkwardness. Time and space turning familiar bodies into strangers again.

Eventually, Mira drops his bag onto a bed, sits at the edge his hands on his thighs. His face, the same face, the same lines leading to his same eyes. But they’re not looking at Mehdi, staring straight at the carpet.

Mehdi grabs his pajamas and tips his head in the direction of the bathroom.

“I’m going to shower,” he announces uselessly. He waits, for the raised eyebrow, the “ _Is that an invitation?_ ” the shifting of pieces slotting into place. But Mira just nods, rubs his palms into the fabric of his jeans.

If he lingers longer than necessary in the hopes that Mira’s already asleep by the time he returns, the tiles keep his secrets. He’s  unpacking his clothes, perfectly folded pieces that he stacks neatly in the drawers. Mehdi grabs the first sweatshirt he finds in his suitcase and tugs it on over his head, back to Mira as he finishes dressing. 

Mira finishes and strips his zip-up off in the space between the beds. The line of his spine, the beauty marks mapping out the perimeter of the world on his back. It disappears under a sweater, then underneath the covers. The inches between them gather up their absences, all the lives they have accumulated without one another stretching it to miles. Mehdi's fingers dangle at the edge of his bed but he may as well be in another room, another end of the earth.

Hours go by, measured only by the way Mira's breathing evens out. The metronome swings and pauses, suspended impossibly against gravity. Mehdi waits for his body to settle but his limbs twitch in irritation.

"Mira?" he asks, expecting nothing.

Still, Mira finds him there.

"Mehdi." 

   


   


The futile way they keep saying one another's name, as if repetition will flower into permanence. Holding onto one another between the sweet-sad syllables.

"You didn't ask." _to come with you_ , he leaves, feeling too vulnerable.

The confession cleaves his chest in two but he forces his body still.

It fills the room like fog, obscures all else in its wake.

"I..."  
   
Mehdi cannot look at him. If he looks at him, he'll know, and as long as he doesn't know, it's okay. They're okay. _He_ 's not, choking on unspoken fears, but _they_ are, might be.

It arrives small and misshapen, but eventually, Mira speaks.

"I thought you knew."

Mehdi stares disapprovingly the crease in the wall.

"How could I..." he begins, releasing ragged breaths.

"You always knew. You felt...you weren't alone."

The words come out ripped and tattered, torn cruelly from his mouth. Mehdi turns to face him, finds his hands idly squeezing the sheets.

"I didn't know if you still..."

Both trapped in the hollows between ellipses.

Mira turns only his head, body still prostrate against the sheets.

"I didn't stop. I never..."

Mira shakes his head at himself.

"It's forever, for me."

He glances at Mehdi, hand closest to him dropping flat onto the sheets, releasing them.

   


   


   


   


A sharp inhale, and all the air billowing out of his throat.

"Mira."

Fiercely, suddenly, Mehdi realizes he does not possess the language for this.

With a half-swallowed noise of bewilderment, he slips out from under his covers and traverses the immutable distance. Mira looks up at him, eyes glossed and pleading, and Mehdi slides beneath the sheets, presses the whole length of his body against his.

His trembling mouth finding Mira's says, _Here, here I am._

-

  _August, 2013.  
_

_AS Roma is different from the first._

_It's a visitor's locker room in Tuscany, but when Totti presses his hands against the tops of his thighs and pushes himself up, it becomes his._

_The deep, rich red frames his face, sets his features in stark relief. The rightness that accompanies belonging._

_He steps into the center and the room holds its breath._

_"We begin as we mean to go, as always." He looks around the room, nodding lightly before meeting Daniele's eyes. The rugged, bearded face transformed into tenderness by absolute belief. He nods in return, and Totti smiles, slowly, but it spreads in soft ripples._

"Buon principio fa buon fine."

_Mehdi nods to himself, finishes tying up his shoes. The infinite possibility of beginnings curls in his belly._

_When he straightens up again, Miralem is looking at him from across the room. He stares, like he's considering, working through the problem. Then, very slowly, the sides of his mouth angle themselves up.  
_

_Suddenly, fiercely, Mehdi thinks,_ Oh _._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Serious Scholarly Citations in the Order They Were Presented:
> 
> -nearly a year and a half after mehdi left as roma, they went to dubai together [during christmas break, 2015](https://www.instagram.com/p/_jpPFnP-N-/)
> 
> -miralem signed for juventus on june 13, 2016, on a five year contract. almost exactly a month later, mehdi agreed to a year-long loan, with the option to make the move permanent.  
> that timeline does not ruin my life.
> 
> -lil genius mira really does speak [six languages. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR9IqeLEyq0) to make up for this, he is tragically tone deaf. i'm so endeared!
> 
> -whoever works for juve pr is also a Serious Scholar because they knew about mehdi and mira's Deep Abiding Love and in his [ very first bianconeri interview ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD5g66sxESE), he confessed the aforementioned Deep Abiding Love for him publicly.  
> i reacted to this extremely rationally.
> 
> -a few months before mehdi left, there were rumors that he was unhappy with his contract and was open to leaving. however, when as roma were on their american tour, club president james pallotta met with mehdi to discuss his future. for some inexplicable reason, [ mira was there. ](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ai2fsQ4J_js/maxresdefault.jpg) let's go with something translation related so that i don't have to scoop my eyeballs out with a tiny demitasse spoon. 
> 
> -remember like two seconds ago when i said mehdi signed almost exactly a month after mira. well, it was a month and two days, and two days is exactly how long it took them [ to fall back into their cozy little travel nook.](https://www.instagram.com/p/BH9FLN9Bb6l/) actually tragic.  
> -[Avec le Frero @miralem_pjanic comme au bon vieux temps](https://www.instagram.com/p/BICjqs3AzYb/) oKAY BUT WHO ASKED? 
> 
> -maitre gims' new song is "boucan (pilule violette)" it was the song that played on [ mira's instastory ](http://meslion.tumblr.com/post/150545087341) where he started bopping along whilE DRIVING THE CAR (DANGER!!!!!!!) and then angled the camera to the passenger's seat and, LO AND BEHOLD. lo and motherfuckin behold.
> 
> -mira [ literally always ](https://www.instagram.com/p/BKIXtijBsDB/) looks [ extremely sleepy ](https://www.instagram.com/p/BISFpBNBi7z/) and on the verge of [ falling asleep while vertical ](http://66.media.tumblr.com/bd4f7ca764173999f31638716eac5d75/tumblr_oavcrfdXoM1s8z5rho1_500.png)  
> this does not draw blood.
> 
> -mehdi was born in france, to moroccan and algerian parents. he plays for morocco. mira was born in what is today bosnia, but because he was raised in luxembourg, he was eligible to play for them. but he said bosnia or not at all.  
> [dog sitting in house on fire] that's fine.
> 
> -there's like a thousand pics of them on airplanes over the years. it's their thing. 
> 
> -there's like a thousand + 1 pics of them in general ruining my life. also their thing.
> 
> -i tried to add links to all of them but ao3 noped me so i'm guessing it's a sign to spare your feelings. who knows.


End file.
